


Monster

by mayfriend



Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: At Least Until S2, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Childhood Trauma, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Implied/Referenced Mind Control, Memory Loss, Oneshot, Possession, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, the Devil - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-13
Updated: 2018-12-13
Packaged: 2019-09-17 14:34:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16976388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayfriend/pseuds/mayfriend
Summary: There is something dark living in the back of Harvey’s mind, and it’s been there for years. He’s so used to it now that he barely knows it’s there, but sometimes, just sometimes, he trips over a memory of something he hadn’t, hadn’t, hadn’t seen and he feels ittwist.He dreams of the mines, most nights. It still scares him, every time, and every morning he wakes up and he pushes it down, down, down.Harvey’s not going crazy. He’s not, he’s not, he’s not. He’s managing, he’s been managing since he was a little kid who stared into the darkness and felt the darkness staring back.Alternately: The Dark Lord doesn't appear to just anyone, you know.





	Monster

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the Imagine Dragons song of the same name.
> 
> _Can I clear my conscience,  
>  If I'm different from the rest,  
> Do I have to run and hide?  
> I never said that I want this,  
> This burden came to me,  
> And it's made it's home inside._

There is something dark living in the back of Harvey’s mind, and it’s been there for years. He’s so used to it now that he barely knows it’s there, but sometimes, just sometimes, he trips over a memory of something he hadn’t, hadn’t, hadn’t seen and he feels it _twist._ He dreams of the mines, most nights. It still scares him, every time, and every morning he wakes up and he pushes it down, down, down.

Harvey’s not going crazy. He’s not, he’s not, he’s not. He’s managing, he’s been managing since he was a little kid who stared into the darkness and felt the darkness staring back. He’s just got- an itch, under his skin. He draws a thousand demon-goats, red and terrible, and none of them come close to capturing the horror of the thing that he tries to forget he saw. He tries again, again, again - he thinks if he can just get it down, then it’ll be done. It’ll be over. He imagines himself showing Tommy, and Tommy going _oh,_ and Tommy will know how to fix him. Tommy has always known how to fix him before, be it a grazed knee with a bandaid or a bump on the head with a kiss or a bad day with a hug.

It’s a symptom of a disease, he thinks some days. No, it’s just a quirk, a twisted imagination in overdrive after too long wandering through the dark caverns. No, no, wrong, it was real, he knows in his bones, he knows it, it’s been a decade or thereabouts and he can still close his eyes and summon the spectre without a thought-

When Sabrina tells him she’s a witch, the first time, he freaks out. Not just because she’s leaving, not just because she’s been lying, but because he believes her. Because if Sabrina is a witch, then Harvey really may have seen something. Something real, something dark, something-

He welcomes the memory wipe when it comes, and the thing living in the back of his dead does too. _Not ready yet,_ a voice that isn’t his thinks, _not ready yet._ He’d ask _not ready for what?_ but then he’s a little disoriented and _shit_ , he’s zoned out again, how could he do that to Sabrina? He loves Sabrina, he loves her, and he’s the worst boyfriend ever cause he doesn’t listen to her. “I’m so sorry,” he tells her, and she’s smiles all secret-sad and says she doesn’t mind, it’s not his fault.

He loves her, he loves her, because if she knew who he really was deep down, what he’d seen, then she’d know that it’s always his fault, always, always, always. Harvey’s known since he was old enough to understand the words that he killed his mother. His dad made sure he knew from the start, and even when Tommy said he’s wrong, Harvey knew that it was because Tommy didn’t want to believe that he’d lost a mother and gained… what? Harvey wasn’t worth that. Harvey wasn’t worth her. Tommy lost a mother and gained a monster for a brother, who would willingly make that trade? Maybe Tommy. Maybe. He was always better to Harvey than he deserved.

(There was always something a little off about Harvey Kinkle, even before the mines. Not every lost mortal boy can lay eyes on the Dark Lord, after all. Even fewer can house him in their souls. He looks at Jesse Putnam, torn apart by the devil inside him, and thinks _that’s me, that’s me, that’s me_  and doesn't know why it feels so right.)

The second time Sabrina tells him, he almost throws up. It’s acrid, the bile rising in his throat, and he knows what she’s going to say before she says it. _Put him back. Put him back. Put him back._

(“It won’t hurt him?”)

Harvey is a monster, Harvey is a monster, he killed his mother and he’s going to kill his brother, but he’s going to be fucking damned if he’ll hurt him. Never, never, never. (You tore her apart, you hear me? You ripped her apart. You did this-) _No,_ Sabrina says, all wet-wild and she says she’ll do it, but Harvey can’t let her. This is on him. This is on him and the hunting rifle that he couldn’t fucking shoot back in the forest. He’s not a coward, he’s not a chicken shit, he’s not soft, but would it be so bad if he was?

He closes his eyes when he pulls the trigger, and he doesn’t even cry after. He is too hollow for that. He is too torn-apart-empty-open for that. Memories fall through his fingers like sand and he tries to hold on, hold on to them the way he held onto Tommy when he used to give him piggy back rides. That’s when he finds him for the first time, for the five-hundredth time, that’s when he sees him on the backs of his eyelids. There is someone in his head that isn’t him, someone dark and huge and _red_.

“Hello, Harvey,” the other person says with his mouth, and he screams. He screams, screams, screams, and can’t Sabrina hear him? Can’t anyone hear him? Can’t Tommy- can’t his mother- can’t anyone hear him, help him, hold him? He’s only human, only human, isn’t he? His heart is hurting, and he clutches at it, thinks that it might just burst out of his chest, he’d rather that than the pain, but it just keeps aching, keeps breaking, keeps burning-

His legs give out. His lungs close. The last thing he sees before the world spots to black is Tommy’s hand hanging lifelessly off the side of the bed. He reaches for it, because if he can just get to Tommy, if he can just show-tell-draw it for Tommy then he’ll fix it, he’ll fix it, he’ll fix him-

When he wakes, he doesn’t remember the voice, but he remembers the rest. _I’m a monster,_ he chants in his head, hysterical and hollow and cracking at the edges, _I’m a monster, I’m a monster, I’m a monster-_

 _(Yes,_ the voice purrs in the back of his head, _yes, yes, yes.)_

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr at: [mayfriend](http://mayfriend.tumblr.com)


End file.
